Over the last decade or so, the NFL has established itself as the juggernaut of North American sports and the clearest sign of this is that millions of people will tune into the league’s entry draft tonight. Last year it was 8 million people, which was a 16 per cent bump from the previous year. It’s just a guy in a suit calling out names and it will get as many viewers as ABC averaged on Tuesday night for its primetime lineup.

There’s no marquee prospect this year, no Andrew Luck or Robert Griffin III, but there’s still plenty of players that hopeful football fans can project all their dreams and aspirations onto.

The NFL markets the draft to guys like me. I’m a fan of the persistently woeful Buffalo Bills, desperate for some morsel of hope for the team. Like any good fan, I want to have an opinion, a strong one and a quick one, about the player the Bills choose at the eighth spot in the first round tonight.

In 2009 I was on a family vacation in Washington, DC and my brother and I slipped into a sports bar to watch the first round of the draft. I’d done a little bit of research and I had a list of players that were possibilities for the Bills at the eleventh spot and, when the clock started on Buffalo’s pick, I had Brian Orakpo’s name at the top.

Orakpo was the 6′ 4″, 263 lb mountain of man from Texas. I knew he could run the 40 yard dash in 4.63 seconds and do 31 reps of 225lb on the bench. This was an athletic freak who had produced in college. It was a no-brainer.

When the Bills took Aaron Maybin, the under-sized linebacker from Penn State, I squinted long and hard at the television. My brother and I exchanged a look.

Who was Aaron Maybin?

Being the trusting, foolish Bills fan I am, I tried to rationalize the pick. In the end, I had to trust the front office because, surely, they knew something I didn’t, right? As Orakpo racked up the quarterback sacks and Maybin bounced off offensive lineman every week, I started to have my doubts. Maybin was quickly released and never heard from again (by me, at least. He’s on my pay-no-mind list).

I think, partly, I’m interested in sports because of that tantalizing feeling that I could do a better job than the guy in charge. Obviously, I couldn’t and obviously, most of the time, I’m wielding hindsight like wisdom and pretending things are a lot simpler than they really are.

When the draft happens tonight I’ll almost certainly be calling someone an idiot for picking some player I’ve never heard of. It’s the privilege of fandom.

To help furnish fans with quick, strong opinions, websites ranking college prospects and posting “mock drafts” have popped up everywhere. While my anguish over the Aaron Maybin pick trickled out over two years of substandard play, now I can shriek angrily at my team’s boneheaded pick right away. The disappointing pick takes many forms though. Here’s a few I’m preparing for:

The out-of-the-blue howler: This could also be called the Al Davis Memorial Award for Picking a Random Fast Guy because he was the man who made it an art form. The best example of this comes from the 2009 draft when the Oakland Raiders took Darrius Heyward-Bey seventh overall. He’s already been released by the team and, luckily for the Bills, the draft experts were still too bewildered about this pick to give Buffalo any strife for the Aaron Maybin pick that quickly followed it.

The crazy-trade-up-for-pretty-good-player: When the Atlanta Falcons traded about 50 picks to move up in the draft to pick Julio Jones, no one doubted that Jones would be a good player but was he worth the cost? By now, Jones could probably be held up as a successful nutty trade-up but a clear failure is Mark Sanchez. The Jets moved up in the draft to pick the quarterback and, in doing so, guaranteed him a massive contract. They got stuck with him and now the team is in near-constant disarray.

The ultra-safe-ultra-boring-pick: Last year, for the Bills, it was a cornerback and although he has performed admirably, come on…it’s a cornerback. They could up the ante this year and pick a guard, which is pretty much just a fat guy who stands in front of the quarterback. Total snoozer.

The quarterback-reach: In 2011, Jake Locker was picked eighth overall by the Tennessee Titans and oh how we laughed and laughed. Then the Vikings picked Christian Ponder and we laughed some more. Teams go a little bit crazy when it comes to quarterbacks. If the Bills pick Ryan Nassib at #8 tomorrow, you can file it under this category.

So there’s two options. I’ll get to either delude myself the player the Bills picked will finally bring glory to the franchise, or I’ll get to complain loudly about something I’m only superficially knowledgable on. But isn’t that what sports is all about? Bring on the draft.

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